Judgment Day
by Pickwick12
Summary: Ben knows Alex and Danielle will remember everything some day, and he's sure judgment and rejection will follow. But what if he has things upside-down?  Sideways world, post-ending
1. Something Like Ecstasy

"Dr. Linus?" Alex's smile is radiant as she stands in the doorway of the cramped office. Ben looks up from his stack of exam papers and smiles, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

"Hello, Alex, what can I do for you?"

"I know it's in the middle of the day, but could we take a walk? I need to ask you something." Alex's eyes bore into him, sweetly insistent.

"Of course, Alex." He gets up and puts on the grey sweater draped over the back of his chair. She has no idea that he'd be hard-pressed to say no to anything she asked.

Outside, Alex doesn't say anything until they're on the back side of the campus, near the south soccer field. Finally, she turns to him, looking happy and nervous at the same time. "I'm afraid you're going to think I'm crazy, Dr. Linus."

"I doubt that." His voice is calm, but his heart begins to race as he anticipates what she's about to say.

"Do you—do you ever feel like you've lived another life before? Not like reincarnation. More like—it was the normal you, but you don't remember it?" She looks away, as if she's afraid he'll laugh or disapprove.

Ben stands silent for a moment before answering quietly, "What do you remember, Alex?"

"It's weird—" she sounds relieved at the lack of judgment in his tone—"it's just flashes of things. Like a dream, but it's so real. I'm on an island, and there are guns. And," she turns back to him, "you're there, but I don't know why. It's just snapshots."

Ben feels himself turning pale. He has known this day would come, but for the past five months, his every-morning ritual has been to wake up and hope beyond hope that it will delay a little longer. Judgment day. He fears this day more than anything he has ever faced, the day Alex will reject him forever.

"Come here, Alexandra." He knows what he has to do. He will help her remember and seal his own fate. It's not for a father to look after himself. He knows that now, and he will sacrifice everything for her, all the comfort he has found in this new life

Surprised, she walks over to him, looking into his face curiously, and Ben does something entirely against school policy. In a matter of moments, he knows, it won't matter. He puts his arms around Alex and kisses her forehead.

As they touch, the memories wash over him. Alex on the swings. Alex angry. Alex practicing the alphabet on his lap. Alex lying on the ground bleeding out.

Ben feels Alex's body tense as he holds her, and his heart breaks as she begins to cry. He wishes he could spare her the pain of remembering. But she doesn't pull away.

"Dad." The word cuts the silence like a knife.

"Yes, Alex." He pulls back and looks into her tear-stained face, waiting for her to reject him, to pass the judgment he deserves.

Instead, she wraps her arms around his neck. "I love you so much."

"What?" He nearly staggers under the weight of his surprise.

She touches his face. "I understand now, and I forgive you, and I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Alex." The eyes that look back at him are the eyes of his daughter.

They walk back together, not touching, just enjoying peace and silence and the wonder of each other's company. Ben has feared the weight of judgment, but mercy is no weight at all. It's a lightness, a kiss, something like ecstasy.


	2. A Thousand Fractured Pieces

Danielle washes the dishes, smiling as she hears the sounds of Dr. Linus's voice and her daughter's answering laugh. Often, she has wondered why he chooses them over and over. He's a clever man, far too intelligent to be teaching at a high school like Alex's and having dinner with her simple mother. He should be a professor or a university president.

She doesn't notice when the plate gets too slippery in her hands, so she's surprised when it crashes into the floor and shatters into a thousand pieces.

Those thousand pieces are like the fractured slices of her consciousness that suddenly come together. She sees herself, a young woman full of hope, losing her will to live and then her mind. Sayid's face. Alex gone. It's all jumbled together with an Island and a pillar of smoke.

"Mom! Mom! Are you ok?" Alex's voice is like something far away as the memories begin to arrange themselves in order. She was so angry, so bitter, so hurt. She can see it, even feel the woman she was. But she is that woman no longer.

Here in this place, this land she now realizes is just a place for remembering, she is whole. All the pieces fit together as they never did when she was alive. There is love inside her now, love that acts as the glue that makes the broken shards into the mosaic of a beautiful life. She cries.

"You're bleeding," she hears his voice and feels him places a bandage on her palm, touching her gently, with love, the love they both finally share in this strange, misty world.

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him with all the passion she has ever possessed. "Thank you for raising my Alex," she says, and their tears fall into each other.


End file.
